| In industrial visbreaking processes, the conversion typically takes place at ~450 °C and the extent of conversion is limited by the coking propensity of the feed. Some of the older literature on bitumen upgrading reported that it was possible to substantially upgrade the straight run product at lower temperatures. In this study, the efforts were made to explore the thermal cracking behavior of oil sands bitumen at low temperature. Four temperatures were performed: 340 °C, 360 °C, 380 °C and 400 °C.;Keywords: Visbreaking, mild thermal cracking, light gases, time, temperature, inverse relationship.;In this study, a new hypothesis formulated---light gases formed during visbreaking could also suppress coke formation which was investigated by varying the pressures or batch/semi-batch operations. All the reactions occur during visbreaking depend on three operating variables: pressure, time and temperature. The inverse relationship between time and temperature broke down at low temperatures. |
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